Britain 1926 General Strike: On the Verge of Revolution

Eighty years ago an earthquake shook the very foundations of British capitalism. In the greatest display of militant power in its history, the British working class moved into action in the General Strike of 1926. For 9 days, from May 3, not a wheel turned nor a light shone without the permission of the working class. In such a moment, with such power, surely it ought to have been possible to have transformed society? How can such a position have ended in defeat? (by Phil Mitchinson, originally published in May 2001)

"It is a conflict which, if it is fought out to a
conclusion can only end in the overthrow of parliamentary government
or its decisive victory."Winston Churchill,
Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer

"I have never disguised that in a challenge to the
constitution, God help us unless the government won."Jimmy Thomas, Labour MP and
Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen

"There's never been anything like it. If the
blighters o' leaders here... dinna let us down we'll hae the
capitalists
crawlin' on their bellies in a week. Oh boy, it's the revolution at
last!"ILP activist quoted
in John Paton's 'Left Turn'

75 years ago an earthquake shook the very foundations of British
capitalism. In the greatest display of militant power in its history
the British working class moved into action in the General Strike of
1926. For 9 days, from May 3, not a wheel turned nor a light shone
without the permission of the working class. In such a moment, with
such power, surely it ought to have been possible to have transformed
society? How can such a position have ended in defeat?

The 1926 General Strike did not fall from a clear blue sky. During
the first world war the miners, railway workers and dockers had
formed the Triple Alliance of nearly a million and a half workers. At
the height of the upsurge in class struggle in 1919 only the
deception of the government and the vacillation of the leaders of
these unions prevented an all out confrontation. In the summer of
1920 the Labour and TUC leaders for the first time threatened a
general strike in the event of any renewed intervention by Britain
against the young workers state in Russia. Months later in 1921 the
confrontation was to come to a head when the government announced
that it was relinquishing control of the mines. The coal owners
immediately announced drastic wage cuts. The Miners Federation
rejected their attack and the miners were locked out on March 31.

The movement in 1921 was like the prologue of the events to follow
just five years later. Troops were dispatched to the coalfields. The
Triple Alliance pledged to join the miners fight on April 15. On the
eve, however, The Miners' Federation (The Fed) secretary Frank Hodges
announced that a compromise was possible on the basis of local
bargaining. This was decisively rejected by his own executive, but
was seized upon by the other union leaders as an excuse to bow out.
Strike notices were withdrawn and April 15 is remembered as Black
Friday. The miners were left isolated. After a courageous struggle
lasting three months they were defeated. Wages were scythed down by
10-40 % almost everywhere.

Not for the last time, the defeat of the miners had a big impact
on other workers. Amongst the miners themselves, anger with the
government was matched by anger at the betrayal of Jimmy Thomas, the
leader of the railway workers union. This betrayal was to be repeated
on a far grander scale in 1926.

There followed a certain respite for the miners. After the
crippling conditions imposed in 1921, a boom in mining in 1923,
following the French occupation of the Ruhr, meant an increase in
wages and a fall in unemployment.

A new militancy saw a shift left in the unions. The key to this
swing left was the work of the National Minority Movement. This rank
and file body had taken off in 1924 under the leadership of the young
Communist Party (CP). The task of the Minority Movement was declared
to be "not to organise independent revolutionary trade unions or to
split revolutionary elements away from existing organisations
affiliated to the TUC...but to convert the revolutionary minority
within each industry into a revolutionary majority."

This proved a highly successful strategy which we could learn a
lot from today. They built their support amongst transport, railway
and engineering workers and above all amongst the miners. When Hodges
resigned from the leadership of the Fed in 1924 (to take up a
government post) the Minority Movement supported the miners agent for
central Rhondda, Arthur James Cook for the leadership. Cook had
resigned from the CP in 1921 but still declared himself a "disciple
of Karl Marx and a humble follower of Lenin."

Economic conditions were changing again. French withdrawal from
the Ruhr saw German coal back on the market and British exports
slump. The new Tory Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, appointed that
long standing enemy of the miners and the international working
class, Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer. His first
budget in April 1925 announced a return to the Gold Standard at
pre-war parity with the dollar. This meant overvaluing the pound by
10%. The bosses of industry would have to make up this overvaluation
by cutting costs. It would be workers wages and not bosses profits
that would be slashed.

As usual the mine owners were the first to announce cuts.

Black Friday had not been forgotten. Since March the miners had
been trying to organise a new Triple Alliance. With nothing yet
finalised, the miners turned for support to the full General Council
of the TUC. It placed itself "without qualification and unreservedly
at the disposal of the Miners Federation."

Other industrial unions were joining the Triple Alliance. It was
clear that the attack on the miners would be repeated across the
board. All workers would face the same attacks if they were not
beaten back now.

This was confirmed by Baldwin himself. The miners reported to a
meeting of union executives that Baldwin had declared "All the
workers of this country have got to face a reduction of wages to help
put industry on its feet."

It was clear to both sides that a serious fight was brewing.
Baldwin moved to buy time by introducing a nine month subsidy to
maintain the miners previous agreement while an inquiry into the
mining industry took place. There had been many such inquiries
before. Their findings had never been to the liking of governments or
coal owners. Most advised some form of nationalisation for the mines.
In reality Baldwin and co were not interested in any Report, only in
buying time to be better prepared for an all out confrontation.

On the workers side Cook understood this. "Next May" he announced
"we shall be faced with the greatest crisis and the greatest struggle
we have ever known and we are preparing for it.... We have already
beaten not only the employers, but the strongest government in modern
times."

Such a victory, and more, could and should have been possible. The
main obstacle however was not 'the enemy', the employers and the
government, it was the union leaders.

The views of the right wing bureaucrats were most clearly
expressed by J R Clynes of the General and Municipal Workers union,
"I do not fear on this subject to throw such weight as I have on the
side of caution. I am not in fear of the capitalist class. The only
class I fear is our own." (my emphasis)

While these ladies and gentlemen were preparing to surrender
before the fight had even begun, the ruling class were preparing with
gusto.

The ramshackle Emergency Supply and Transport Committee set up by
Lloyd George in 1919, and beefed up in preparation for a fight at the
time of Black Friday in 1921, was reorganised. It was built up and
joined by a 'volunteer' body, the Organisation for the Maintenance of
Supplies. The OMS were an unsavoury bunch including the fascists.

The ruling class, the employers organisations and the state were
all busily preparing a showdown. The TUC General Council, meanwhile.
met to consider its role for the first time on April 27, 1926 - three
days before battle lines would be drawn and the government subsidy
end.

By now unemployment had risen, and union membership fallen from
8.25 million in 1920 to 5.25 million. The union leaders had neither
the desire nor the will to fight.

The publication of the Samuel Report, the findings of the
government inquiry, was their great hope. The report damned the coal
owners, but stopped short of calling for nationalisation as earlier
reports had done. It called for wage cuts, but the retention of
national agreements and a reorganisation of the industry.

The National Minority Movement immediately condemned the report.
They convened a National Conference of Action in London on March 21
which represented hundreds of thousands if not a million workers. In
the Minority Movement we saw the basis for a mass Marxist force in
Britain. However, the CP policy was based on the Anglo-Russian
Committee, a bloc between the Russian unions and the General Council
of the TUC. This bloc led the CP to support the lefts in the union
leaderships against the right and tone down their criticisms.
Appallingly, this bloc with the General Council actually continued
for a year after the strike was defeated at the hands of the TUC
leaders. In the end it was the British union leaders, who had only
ever used the bloc as a convenient red coloration before their
members, who broke up the committee in 1927.

The CP had set up groups in 300 pits and factories by the
beginning of 1926. They held important positions too in the Trades
Councils which were to play a leading role in the local organisation
of the General Strike. They should have been in a solid position to
grow rapidly, provided they had a correct policy, a policy based on
exposing the bankrupt union leaders of right and left varieties.

Cook stuck by the miners position "Not a minute on the day, not a
penny off the pay". The TUC leaders however saw the Samuel report as
a way out. The coal owners posted notices that all employment on
current conditions would terminate on April 30.

The TUC's Industrial Committee asked to speak to the Prime
Minister, desperate to find a way to avoid a conflict. While the TUC
leaders continued to plead with Baldwin to intervene on their behalf,
they should have been preparing their own forces. Baldwin was already
intervening on behalf of his class. The government wasn't some
independent arbiter from which the workers could gain
even-handedness. It was, and remains, in essence a committee for
organising the affairs of the ruling class. Baldwin was preparing to
fight his enemy, even while the officers of the opposing camp were
knocking on his door asking for his help.

On the afternoon of April 30 the bosses announced their proposal.
A return to the Minimum of 1921, a 13% cut in pay and an eight hour
day.

On Saturday May 1, one million miners were locked out. The General
Council now assumed responsibility for the miners' dispute. They
immediately contacted the government for talks, and prepared to call
out the 'front ranks' from midnight May 3. On Saturday evening they
went to meet the Prime Minister. Baldwin realised that the TUC
leaders were terrified of a general strike and wanted to give them
some room to manoeuvre. The rest of the cabinet however were ready
for the fight. They issued a statement demanding the TUC's complete
capitulation. Another round of cat and mouse followed with
negotiations over this or that wording which might allow the TUC
leaders to back down and abandon the miners again. At 11pm the miners
executive joined the General Council in number eleven Downing Street.
The miners and the General Council rejected the sell out they found
on the table, and Bevin instead tried to draw up a compromise which
might be acceptable to the miners. These plans were interrupted
however when Baldwin informed the TUC leaders that negotiations were
off because workers at the Daily Mail had started the strike already.
The General Council left Downing Street with a letter from the
cabinet demanding "repudiation of the actions referred to that have
already taken place, and an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of
the instructions for a general strike."

The TUC leaders rushed off to find out what had happened at the
Mail. It turned out to be an unofficial walkout by workers refusing
to print the paper's lead article 'For King and Country'.

Instead of supporting the printers, Citrine scurried back to
number ten with a letter repudiating this action, but found the Prime
Minister had already gone to bed and could not be disturbed.

Bevin's compromise proposals were now put to the miners executive,
who rejected them 12 - 6. The General Council however approved the
plan unanimously and endorsed the view that they were now in charge
of the miners' dispute. Once again they thought they had found a way
to back out of the fight. However, the government weren't interested,
they would only accept a guarantee that the miners would accept a cut
in wages, and would not negotiate at all unless the strike was called
off.

A State of Emergency was declared in parliament. During the debate
the representatives of the ruling class showed a thorough
understanding of the nature of class struggle and the events that
were about to unfold. Baldwin announced that we have been "challenged
with an alternative government... I do not think that all the leaders
when they assented to ordering a general strike fully realised that
they were threatening the basis of ordered government, and going
nearer to proclaiming civil war than we have been for centuries
past..."

The government's plans had been prepared for years. They passed an
Emergency Powers Act; food, coal and petrol were stockpiled. Regional
Civil Commissioners were given dictatorial powers, and all ready to
go into action on receipt of a one worded telegram - "Action!" The
telegram was sent out on May 2. All army and navy leave was
cancelled. Troop reinforcements were dispatched to Scotland, South
Wales, London and Lancashire. Warships docked in the Tyne, the Clyde,
in Swansea, in Barrow, in Bristol and in Cardiff.

The OMS handed over its organisation to the government. There were
maybe 100,000 of them. These were the forces lined up against the
working class.

Yet when 4 million out of 5.5 million workers are out, the
question is inevitably posed, where does power really lie? No matter
what its initial aim, a general strike raises the question which
class rules in society? The leaders, if they are not prepared to see
that struggle through to a conclusion, have no other alternative but
to betray the movement. This is a cardinal lesson of 1926.

On May 4 transport was crippled. The NUR and ASLEF were solid.
London was choked. Only 15 out of 315 tubes ran. On Tuesday 4 May 300
out of 4400 buses were running. By the end of the week that was down
to 40. Nine of 2000 tramcars operated. This picture was repeated
around the country. From the first moment the power of the working
class was evident. Nothing moved without the workers say so. By the
end of the first day builders, printers, iron, steel, metal and heavy
chemical workers had joined transport and railway workers and
dockers. The strike was solid.

Churchill undertook the production of a newspaper, a filthy rag
called The British Gazette, the sole aim of which was to spread
propaganda, lies that there was a drift back to work etc.

TUC response

The TUC response was The British Worker. Instead of rallying the
troops and taking the movement forward the main task of this journal
seemed to be to refute the Gazette's slanderous accusation that the
unions were organising a revolution.

The role of leadership should have been to counter the lies of the
bosses, to spread the movement and take it forward. Instead they were
desperately trying to keep control of the men and women they were
marching up to the top of the hill in order that they could march
them back down again. Jimmy Thomas, the Grand Old Duke of York,
admitted as much in the Commons on May 13 "If by any chance it should
have got out of the hands of those who would be able to exercise some
control, every sane man knows what would have happened...That danger,
that fear was always in our minds, because we wanted at least, even
in this struggle, to direct a disciplined army."

The army of labour was well organised, at least locally. Councils
of Action grew in size and authority across the country. They took
responsibility for organising permits for transport, picketing,
entertainment and financial assistance for those in most need. In
East Fife a workers defence corps was organised. Initially consisting
of 150, its ranks swelled to over 700 when clashes with police
illustrated clearly the need for such a body. In Bolton, Merthyr and
Methil well organised Councils of Action functioned alongside Central
Strike Committees. Some outstanding local strike bulletins were
produced, although these were discouraged by TUC headquarters.

In large parts of the country control of the roads, transport and
distribution was firmly in the hands of the Councils of Action, but
these were never linked up, there was no nationally co-ordinated
policy. The Paisley strike committee spoke for many, the "chief
difficulty lay in getting accurate information from headquarters,
particularly in regard to the issuing of permits."

Churchill and Baldwin exaggerated, there was no alternative
government, but there could have been. Linking up the councils of
action and strike committees across the country would have been the
basis for just such an alternative government, a workers government.
That would have meant taking the struggle from a defensive one to
save the miners, to an offensive one to change society. Unfortunately
the TUC leaders were not even prepared to carry through the defensive
battle.

Their own recent history gave no reason to have any illusions in
the tops of the unions. Even the most honest and courageous of the
workers leaders, Cook, had no clear perspective and plan of action.
The Communist Party limited itself to supporting the left union
leaders. Some of the best local leaders were Communists, they held
important positions in most Councils of Action and strike committees.
However they did not see a revolutionary potential in the movement
before them. Karl Radek in Russia gave the British CP their lead,
"this is not a revolutionary movement. It is simply a wage dispute."
Indeed it was not yet a revolutionary movement, but a strange mere
wage dispute which involves a general strike, councils of action, in
some parts of the country, like the north east, almost dual power
with the workers in control of everything that moved. No, this was
not simply a wage dispute. It was a defensive battle, but one which
was by the day and the hour increasing the confidence of the working
class. They could see and feel the power at their fingertips. After
the strike there were over 3000 prosecutions, more than half of them
were for acts of incitement, one Lambeth tram cleaner, for example
was fined £5 for shouting, "We want the revolution."

Instead the order came on May 10, via the British Worker "Stand
firm. Be loyal to instructions and trust your leaders." Those leaders
were desperately scurrying around looking for the fire exit. They
found it in the return of Samuel. Once it dawned on Thomas and co
that the ruling class weren't willing to compromise, they realised
that they had no alternative but to...capitulate. All sorts of
excuses like the alleged drift back to work (in reality there were
more workers coming out every day) were wheeled out to justify
backing Samuel's new proposal. This included promises of
reorganisation of the mines but insisted on a wage cut. The General
Council backed the proposal. The miners naturally rejected it and
were rightly appalled that even the basic demand of trade unionism, a
clause guaranteeing no victimisation of those who had been on strike,
had been omitted. They were told to take it or leave it. On May 11,
after a week, with the strike growing in dimension and confidence the
TUC decided to call it off the next day without any guarantees on
further negotiations, without any defence against victimisation,
without even the promise of an end to the lock out. This was abject
surrender. The government immediately announced it as such, declaring
that it had "no power to compel employers to take back every man who
has been on strike." The union leaders sent out messages to their
members promising that "assurances had been given" there had been
"firm undertakings" etc. Around the country workers greeted the news
with incredulity, with a mixture of anger and dismay. The workers had
been betrayed by those leaders who kept asking them to trust them.
The bosses immediately tried to ram home their advantage. There were
sackings and wage cuts everywhere. One group of strikers wrote in
Lansbury's Labour Weekly a week later "The bosses in all trades
felt...that now they had the trade union movement at their feet, and
all they had to do was to stamp on it."

Anger

As a result of these attacks and anger at the TUC's betrayal,
there were 100,000 more out on the day after the strike had been
called off than there had been on its first day. Churchill's Gazette
was like a red rag to the workers with its headline reading
"Unconditional withdrawal of notices by TUC. Men to return forthwith.
Surrender handed to Premier in Downing Street."

However the cowardice of the leaders should not be mistaken for
the mood of the workers. The bosses were in danger of going too far.
Fenner Brockway wrote from Manchester "The Gazette...chortled over
the great surrender but the temper of the workers was more militant
than ever and in Manchester there was no thought of going back...For
the first time feeling was bitter - bitter against employers who were
everywhere victimising the local strike stalwarts, and bitter against
the TUC General Council. It looked as though the end of the strike
might be the beginning of the revolution."

The TUC surrender could have ended in a rout but for the struggle
and militancy of the workers themselves who managed to minimise the
nevertheless vicious attacks of the bosses.

After a week however, without leadership and direction, seeing no
way forward workers did begin to return to work.

The miners were isolated again. Despite the willingness of the
workers to fight on, the NUR leaders now even refused to embargo the
movement of coal. The TUC refused to arrange a levy for the miners.
After a heroic struggle, locked out for seven months, the miners went
back to work, at least those not victimised, on longer hours, with
less pay and no national agreement.

The ruling class had spent hundreds of millions of pounds, yet
with all the resources at their disposal they could never have
defeated the general strike but for the treachery of the TUC leaders.

The Communist Party grew from 6000 to 10,000. This was small fry
however, with a correct policy they could have gained ten times as
many.

The defeat, or more accurately surrender led to the introduction
of vicious anti trade union legislation in the form of the Trade
Union Bill of 1927, where sympathetic strikes were outlawed and trade
unionists had to opt in rather than opt out of the political levy.
Sound familiar? There are indeed eerie comparisons with the miners
strike of 1984-5 where the heroic struggle of the miners and the
support of the rank and file of other unions was only matched by the
treachery of the TUC and Labour leaders. The miners defeat in 1985
had a dramatic impact on all workers and on the bosses who launched
attacks on other sectors while almost identical anti union
legislation was introduced.

The coal owner Lord Londonderry had predicted in 1926 that the
unions would be smashed from top to bottom. They were not. The TUC
surrender had a profound impact on workers, but their will to
struggle returns again and again. What is lacking on each and every
occasion is a leadership worthy of the workers willingness to fight.
In the Minority Movement we had the beginning of such an alternative
leadership for the unions. Today, too, the task must be to build such
a new leadership for the workers organisations. The first step must
be for us all to study and learn the lessons of the history of
workers struggle.